Contrasting views from derby coaches

Andrew Hunt

There were contrasting opinions from Bulldogs coach John Kear and Dewsbury counterpart Glenn Morrison following Sunday’s pulsating derby in Blackpool.

Kear was able to revel in the occasion following his side’s 28-24 victory which sees the Bulldogs third in the Kingstone Press Championship, while Morrison was left to reflect on what might have been after the Rams led 12-0 and 20-12 at stages in the match.

Kear said: “This occasion is great and I think these two teams served up a pretty good contest.

“I’m glad that after a stinker of a start that we’ve managed to recover and come out on the right side of the ledger.

“It was a bit loose and there were too many errors but when it’s a local derby, it is a bit of a scrap but we’ve managed to come out on top.”

Despite Batley’s lofty position, Kear refused to dwell on his side’s top four prospects.

He added: “We’ll look at the table at the end of the season. We are only at round 15 and there are eight rounds of rugby league to be played but we are just happy to leave (Blackpool) with the two points and savour the occasion.”

Morrison was downbeat after the narrow loss, saying: “Unfortunately we didn’t get the points in what was a must win game for us.

“Our skill level let us down and I spoke about that at half-time and our completion rate but we are not getting it right at the moment.

“We’ve had a lot of injuries and had some disruptions so we haven’t been able to have that consistency.

“We showed, when we get to the right points and people run the right lines, we are capable of scoring some good tries but we are just not doing it enough.”

James Brown produced a terrific display for the Bulldogs, getting on the scoresheet and picking up man-of-the-match.

The Batley prop added: “I don’t think we could have started any worse. Dewsbury came out of the blocks really fast and we had to weather that storm and keep chipping away.

“It was played at a really fast pace and it was really hot on the pitch but we had to stick with it and we knew we would come away with the win.”